I'll also start taking steps to figure out a budget. It will be quite difficult to nail down with the size of our household and all the irregular stuff, but I'll attempt it. Good news is that my 2014 income will be up another 10K +/-, in addition to the continued savings from working from home!

Ok, let me put in a plug for YouNeedABudget. You can get a 34 day evaluation of the program free, but if you want to buy it, send me (or someone else who uses it) a private message for a 10% discount.

On the YNAB forums we're fond of saying that there's no such thing as a "normal" month, because every month, something comes up.

You keep mentioning the size of your household as being a problem for tracking, but I can't see where you said what that is?

How many of you are spending from your primary accounts?

You mentioned driver's ed class? So are there teenagers? Teens can have their own accounts and their own income to manage (even if you decide that's an allowance from you). When my kid turned 12? 13? I got her a Visabuxx card and put her allowance on that. She could pull it out as cash or use it as a debit card.

If it's just you and your spouse spending from the primary accounts, it shouldn't be that hard to nail down what needs to be accounted for. Have a place on your desk to put receipts and go through them once a week or so.

If you do decide to get YNAB, there are mobile apps and you (and anyone else spending from your accounts) can record things as they are spent, on the go.

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